Joseph Goebbels' Total War Speech (18 February 1943)

This video considers Joseph Goebbels' Total War speech following the German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943.
Additional Reading:
Randall L. Bytwerk, "Landmark Speeches of National Socialism"
Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel, "Doctor Goebbels: His Life & Death"
Antony Read, "The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle"
Ralf George Reuth, "Goebbels: The Life of Joseph Goebbels"
Toby Thacker, "Joseph Goebbels: Life and Death"

[@colbancassian127]

misleading video title. it's a guy yapping about the speech itself, not the speech

[@codycarlsonph.d.5591]

@@colbancassian127 The intention wasn’t to mislead. Sorry if my “yapping” offended you.

[@iChandrian]

how about you play the speech

[@codycarlsonph.d.5591]

Why don't you?

[@snicko6872]

The Kerch bridge was long ago destroyed and the final pocket of resistance had just been destroyed at Sevastopol. The elite 72rd were ordered to find a way to break out and then to die with honour and not surrender. There is no way the lunatics on Russia's propaganda nightly shows could hide the disaster. After weeks of showing Ukrainian mass casualties and assuring the Russian public that Crimea was impossible to be captured, it had come to this. A final rally for the Russian people, to inspire victory against NATO and wokeism. Dimitri Medvedev would sober up sufficiently to deliver a passionate speech full of blame, hatred and frenzy to the rapturous applause of the last remaining sycophants of the Putin regime. Medvedev would be let of the leash so to speak, and threaten everyone into action. Red faced, blood pressure through the roof, and without any cares to the amount of time he spoke, he threatened nuclear war numerous times in a highly emotional speech. Quickly becoming intoxicated naturally caused him to repeat himself time after time, which reminded everyone of what the clear liquid in his glass was. "Do you want Total War"? He screamed, to the same regular Ministry of Defence goons in their uniforms covered in medals. It was the first time in the 2 and a half years a senior figure in the regime had publicly called the "special operation" a war. But it was all to late, even the average docile Russian had some family member or knew of a person who had died or was crippled from the conflict. They marched out of the Kremlin hall hoping the pep rally enthusiasm would last longer that overnight, but alas, the days of even the most optimistic were silenced as average Russians finally turned off their TV and reached for that final bottle of quality vodka. Ukraine for its part had forgotten what victory celebrations were, as teenagers and old women helped round up the last Russian prisoners on the Crimean peninsula. Medvedev's total war speech was a fitting end to a pathetic angry man who had played second fiddle to Putin much of his life after Putin originally needed him for legal means and then dismissed him from being President for a second term after he forfilled his key roll during the Putin election term limit fiasco. He was personally sanctioned early on in 2022 after being initially gushed over by the Americans when he visited early on in his years at the top job. He never got over what he saw as betrayal from the Americans who he believed considered him "our Russian". A sort of pat on the back he got from many Americans who made it known to him personally that they thought he was a reasonable guy and not simply a stiff shirt Kremlin politician with an agenda of stealing information or playing nice while checking up on spying networks in the US. Now his only revenge came in venting his spleen against not just the West and its degenerate standards and disrespect to the Christian "Russki mir" but personally upon his family's financial ruin due to all his investments being seized in America and Europe by authorities keen to open up a financial reparations operation to benefit those "Nazis and Satanists" operating out of Kiev. Medvedev was said to have collapsed after the speech, as he was not seen for days afterwards. Putin for his part made little comment about speech but demaded the reworked version for television be without the lines, " Russia, rise up and let the storm break loose". In time the assassinations would come to many at the top of the regime, but Medvedev was always a step ahead even though his drinking problems were getting worse. He was a double sided man, saying one thing and with so much built up anger, thinking another. His life would not be taken from a Ukrainian sniper, Western Nuremberg jury 2.0 or even a window of a 9th story building courtesy of the FSB. He would go into hiding successfully for many years and retreat to the wilderness of Siberia, were there seems little effort by authorities to locate him and bring him to justice. In summary, the "total war" speech was a turning point in the Putin regime's history, became the average Russian recieved nothing more than a sugar fix, and it had worn off the following morning. Russia and Ukraine were now empty shells, Ukraine looked like the embers of Nero's Rome, everywhere, a nation of Babushkas were trying to perform every possible task like the rubble women in Berlin in 1945/46. Russia was economically devastated and past the Urals you could forget about anything other than Chinese assistance for investment or charity. The big cities in European Russia were less affected than in Ukraine and the feeling of the "stabbed in the back" myth was growing. But the system of oligarchs was different from 1920/30s Germany, and regaining money and power was the oligarchs biggest source of inspiration not reviving Putin's "Greater Russia" nonsense. Millions died and were injured, thousands of cities destroyed and the nations of Ukraine and Russia would be separated by a division stronger than any Berlin type wall could ever create. Pure hate. A hate that would comsune the Ukrainians for the following decade as they licked their wounds and blamed everything that ever went wrong in their country on the Russians. The Russians for their part would admit nothing, not wrong doing, invasion, unwanted occupation, war crimes, guilt, or even the fabrication of a conflict to satisfy a despotic leader who had destroyed Ukraine and their own nation. It would take decades for the two nations to have even the most basic diplomatic relationship and always with a third party present. History repeats itself to a new generation who refuses to acknowledge the mistakes of the past, or Punish the useful idiots in the west who became Neville Chamberlain in short time and not Winston Churchill.....Was this the war to end all wars? I dont think so.

[@williamarends7138]

It is too bad that total mobilization could be channeled in the cause of such an evil regime and ideology.

[@codycarlsonph.d.5591]

Indeed.